This is probably not a great news flash to most people, but it’s nice to say it out loud every so often. My wonderful wife, my perfectly trying and wonderful sons, and the way we work together.

The boys

I especially want to mention Will just now. He’s not been home with us for quite a few weeks. Too many weeks now. It’s not his kidney really, but it relates to that area. He’d been seemingly so well for two years now since his transplant but then suddenly something went a bit of in the last few months.

I took him down to Sydney for a routine check-up back in February then suddenly the hospital declared he had to stay there. And after I spent a week with him and things weren’t looking up, I had to get back home, get to work, get our business underway. It was the worst conceivable timing, and it wasn’t just about what I wanted to do — it was what had to be done for the whole family. What both of us had to do to keep the whole family going, and it meant both of us being here to get our family enterprise underway.

This has not been an easy thing to do, but when you put so much time and money into something it can be disastrous if you don’t follow it through properly. He’s been good — so good really — and I am so proud of his strength and resilience and maturity in all of this.

It’s not like we “abandoned” him of course. We talk every day, and my parents have been so wonderful to see him nearly every day (since they live in Sydney and we live 500km away this would work). I know some people will not like the sound of this, but we had to consider so many things and the timing was just awful and we did everything we could.

But we’ve got through it. And now I’m heading back down to bring him home. He’s had some surgery and he’s just had enough of it (of course), but he can come home.

Our family will be whole again — a few days after my birthday, but it’s a present enough.